Look Back in Anger – Review

Look Back in Anger, by John Osborne

Overall, I can understand its cleverness. I can see Osborne's intention, and I think he has largely achieved it. But unfortunately I cannot claim to have enjoyed this play. Perhaps if I were a youth in the 1950s I would react to it differently, but sitting in my room reading it in 2021, I didn't love it.

Jimmy Porter is angry. He is angry because of the class system, and because of the social position he finds himself in - he has working class roots, but has married into an upper-middle class family which he resents; he is educated, but is trapped selling sweets in a job below his capabilities. He seems to hate all people, and because he cannot pin down his purpose in life, he decides that his sole purpose should be to create conflict and to complain about the woeful state of the world.

I think the audience are supposed to both resent and pity Jimmy. I think his character resonated with people at the time - the youths who belonged to the same demographic, who were living through the same time period, who also felt they had nothing left to fight for, were probably glad to see something of themselves reflected on the stage. They will have noticed Jimmy's vulnerability, his world-weariness and his emotional scars, and they will have sympathised.

But I find it very difficult to feel sorry for Jimmy. Although he seems to paint himself as the victim, I just cannot see it that way. I see a paradoxical, self-centred character who cannot deal with his own insecurities and therefore turns to abuse and sexism.

I think my opinion of Jimmy is inevitably tainted by the mood of the society in which I live. The zeitgeist of Jimmy's time is one of deflation after the war, and of general frustration and anger linked to that. But our society today has taken a recent turn towards female empowerment and hyperawareness of gender politics. People are becoming much more open and public about topics of sexism and abuse, people are calling for boys to be educated in how to treat women, women are speaking out about incidents they have long kept hidden away. Feminism - equality of the sexes - has never been more prevalent in society. So of course I feel naturally more inclined to take a feminist reading of this play.

And unfortunately, Jimmy Porter's abusive treatment of not only his wife (Alison) but also her female friend (Helena) would not be accepted in today's society. It's not that his abuse was seen as right in the 50s necessarily, but I think today's readers would find it more difficult to understand and allow Jimmy's justification, because the plight of the women matters more now. Moreover, feminist literary critics tend to resent literature that glorifies the patriarchy - and if Jimmy is supposed to be the victim, then this play is dangerously close to doing just that.

It's not only Jimmy's unceasing insults and verbal abuse towards his wife (today known as gaslighting) that irked me. It was also the presentation of the women. Alison's mien of quiet forbearance is sickening. She never stands up to Jimmy, instead spending all her time serving him, cooking for him and ironing his clothes. Furthermore, (spoiler alert, sorry!) even after she has managed to escape, she returns at the end of the play, is reconciled with him, and they carry on together just as before. It was a grave ending, which saddened me.

Helena, I thought, was fulfilling the role of the voice of reason. When she arrived in Act Two having written to Alison's parents to come and rescue her from Jimmy, I rejoiced at this external force, a saviour swooping in untainted by Jimmy's anger. But before long, it became clear that Helena was harbouring an inexplicable attraction to Jimmy. And when the third act began as an almost direct repeat of Act One, just with Alison switched out for Helena, the sickening cyclical structure was almost nightmarish. How could they let this happen to themselves? How could they love Jimmy?

So there you have it. I was frustrated by Jimmy Porter. I found his anger uncomfortable and his abuse unacceptable, and I was irked by the women's submission to him. I can appreciate how this character would have been shocking and perhaps a little thrilling to audiences of the stage show (in the same way that Dr Jekyll's unconventional experiment was a little to be relished?) and I can understand the way he has been constructed to reflect the zeitgeist of 1950s Britain.

That's why I can conclude that this was a very clever play, very well-done, and quite rightly trailblazing and controversial for its blunt realism, but not a particularly enjoyable read.